St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1887-11-12

and he sounds that, and other performers
turn the KEYS of their instruments to
make them correspond, and SOUND me
bow over the string, and listen, and
sound over again, until all the keys are
screwed to concert pitch, and the dis
cords melt into one great symphony, ana
the curtain hoists, and the baton taps,
and audiences are raptured with Nchu-
mann's "Paradise and the Peri, or Kos
sni's "Stabat Mater" or Bach's Mag
niticat" in ID, or Gounod's redemption.
Now, our world can never be attuned
by an imperfect instrument. Even a
Cremona would not do Heaven has or
dained the only instrument and 1t Is
made out of the wood Of the cross, and
| the voices that accompany 1t are I'M
| ported voices cantatriCes OF the first
| Christmas night, when Heaven serenadcd
! the earth with "Glory to God III the
| highest and on earth peace, goodwill to
/ men, Lest we start too far of, and get
| lost in gcneralities, we had better begin
with ourselves, get our own hearts and
| life in harmony with the eternal Christ.
Oh, for His almighty spirit to at
| tune us, to chord our will with
| His WILL to modulate our life with His
| life, and bring us into unison with all
that is pure, and self-saCriti"ing and
heavenly. The strings Of our nature are
! all broken and twisted, and the bow IS
so slack it cannot evoke anything mell-
| tluous. The instrument made Tor Heaven
to play on has been roughly tWanged
and struck by influences worldly and
demoniac. 0, master hand Of Christ, re-
store this split, and fractured, and de
| spoiled, and unstrung nature until first 1t
shall wall out for our sin and then trlll
with divine pardon.
The whole world must also be attuncd
! by the same power. A few days ago |
was in the Fairbanks Weighing Scale
| Mandatory of Vermont. Six hundred
| hands, and they have never had strike.
| Complete harmony between labor and
! capital the operatives of scores Of years
| in their beautiful homes nearby the
! mansions of the manufacturers, whose in
venti0n and Christian behavior made the
great enterprise SO all the world over
! labor and capital will be brought into
| euphonv. You may have heard what is
called the anvil Chorus composed by
| Verdi, tune played by ham
mers, great and small, now with
mighty stroke and now with heavy
! stroke, beating great iron anvil. That
| is what the world has got to come
to-anvil chorus, yard-stick chorus, shut
| tie chorus, trowel chorus, crOwbar
! chorus pickax chorus, gOld-mine chorus,
rail-track chorus, locomotive chorus 1t
/ can be done, and it will be done. SO all
social life will be attuned by the Gospel
| harp. There will be as many classes in
society as now, but the classes will not
be regulated by birth, or wealth, or acct
| dent, but by the scale of virtue and
/ benevolence, and people will be assigned
to their places as good, or very good, or
| most excellent SO, also, commercial
life will be attuned, and there will be
twelve in every dozen, and SIX
teen ounces in every pound, and
| apples at the bottom of the barrel will
be as sound as those on the top, and silk
| goods will not be cotton, and sellers will
not have to charge honest people more
than the right price because others Will
not pay, and goods will come to you cor
/ responding with the sample by which you
purchased them, and coffee will not be
| chckoried, and sugar will not be sanded,
| and milk will not be chalked, and adul-
iteration of food will be a State s-prison
offense. Aye, all things shall be attuned.
| Elections in England and the United
| States will no more be grand carnival
| of defamation and scurrility, but the ele-
walton of righteous men in righteous
! way.
| In the sixteenth century the singers
| called the Fisher Brothers reached the
| lowest bass ever recorded, and the high
| est note ever thrilled was by La Bastar-
| della. and Catalinis voice had a compass
| of three and a-half oCtayes; but Chris
| tianity is more wonderful, for it runs all
up and down the greatest heights and the
| deepest depths of the worlds necessity,
! and it will compass everything and bring
| it in accord with the song which the
morning stars sang at the laying OF the
worlds cornerstone All the sacred
music in homes, and concert halls and
churches tends toward this consumma-
| ton. Make it more and more hearty.
Sing in your families. Sing in your
places of business. If we with proper
| spirit use these faculties, we are rehears-
ing for the skies.
| Heaven is to have a new song, an en- =
| tirely new song, but / shoulC not wonder
| if, as sometime on earth a tune is fash
| toned out of many tunes, or 1t is one
tune with the variations, so some OF the
songs of the redeemed may have playing
| through them the songs of earth, and how
thrilling as coming through the great
anthem of the saved, accompanied
by harpers with their harps, and
trumpeters with their trumpets, we
should hear some of the strains
of Antioch, and Mount Pisgah, and
Coronation, and Lenox, and ST. Martins,
and Fountain, and Ariel, and Old Hun
dred. How they would bring to mind
the praying circles, and communion days,
and the Christmas festivals, and the
church worship in which on earth we
mingled l have no idea that when we
bid farewell to earth we are to bid fare
we'll to all these grand old Gospel hymns,
which melted and raptured our souls for
so many years. Now, my friends, if sin is
discord and righteousness is harmony, let
us get out of the one and enter the other.
After our dreadful civil war was over,
and in the summer of 1869, great ma
tional peace jubilee was held in Boston,
and as an elder of this church had been
honored by the selection of some of his
music, to be rendered on that occasion,
I accompanied him to the jubilee. Forty
thousand people sat and stood in the
great Coliseum erected for that purpose.
Thousands of wind and stringed instru-
ments. Twelve thousand trained voices.